[Spoilers] So after the final of the Ep5 everyone started jumping to conclusions that....

Aurene is going to be resurrected somehow, but isn't more plausible that we are going with plan A of the Forgotten to purify Kralkatorrik. Maybe we'll get some magic mcGuffin from the mists with the help of the ghost of Aurene or Glint and do whatever the Forgotten wanted to do.

Kinda wish she will stay dead...

all the "she'll be resurrected" alarm bells are going off.wish they didn't.they're noisy

At this point, I think bringing back Aurene is much more plausible, for two reasons.

A.) The Forgotten already tried, and the ritual didn't work. Given how little we know about the Forgotten and their magic, to suddenly do better than them in their own wheelhouse is not exactly what I'd call 'plausible'.

B.) The whole function of the ritual is to break the mental domination carried by dragon corruption and grant the subject free will. So far as we know, Kralkatorrik already has this. It doesn't magically make dragons good, it just gives them the chance to choose, and Kralk so far has consistently chosen to ruin our day.

On top of what Aaron said, if there's any Elder Dragon undeserving of redemption, it's Kralkatorrik. And I don't mean such because he killed Glint and Aurene, but just his personality in general, imo, is directed as being irredeemable.

I wish that Kral will eat as much magic he can and burst like an overstuffed pinata.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:On top of what Aaron said, if there's any Elder Dragon undeserving of redemption, it's Kralkatorrik. And I don't mean such because he killed Glint and Aurene, but just his personality in general, imo, is directed as being irredeemable.

I might have forgiven him for the whole force of nature gig if the ritual made him see things our way. Being a force of nature and gorging on magic till he falls into hibernation is all he (and the other Elder Dragons) has ever known. But now? It's pretty personal having killed Glint, Vlast, and Aurene. Kinda obligated to deal with him at this point.

And yeah as Aaron said, the Forgotten tried that route already. He responded by branding them. Don't think he's a very reasonable dragon.

Kralkatorrik didn't kill Vlast. Balthazar (and the Commander's foolishness) did. Well, Vlast rather killed himself, in all honesty. There were other ways to save the Commander from a mere greatsword.

And, why would you WANT some magical "McGuffin" that allows us to do what the forgotten couldn't?

If they go the forgotten route, I think it would be much better served as Aurene somehow coming back branded and us finding forgotten and cleansing her in Arah like we did Twitchy. I think that would have the potential to be very beautiful and perhaps we could see that area of Arah purified now. The only real reason I would want them to go this route.

Given the millisecond we had to even look at Aurene before we went to the black screen saying, "I don't know" it's pretty obvious they want to elude or leave open the possibility for us that Aurene isn't as dead as the story makes her out to be. That as well as the fact that we what kills Aurene knocks us back half a zone so we don't actually see that exact moment of her death. Another indication that they want to cover their tracks in case they decide to bring her back.

A common theory is Joko, and I think it's probably the most logical route they could take. Given the name dropping from Ogden, the fact that she ate him out of the blue, and the fact that her skin was a grey fleshy color instead of branded and crystalline as it was in the vision illustrations. The statement about Joko's death in that way and at that time being important later on in the story. Also the fact that in Glint's trials it was implied her actual fear wasn't the countless deaths she witnessed but the fear of being branded by Kralk. So, perhaps the fear of being branded by Kralk was greater to her than dying because she innately knew that she couldn't die? Or more on that, she knew that if she were branded she risks being his unkillable branded weapon.

As usual, we're left with a fast-paced story that really leaves more questions than answers. And given the history of this game, for all we know next episode we could find this magical McGuffin you're requesting, Aurene is hinted at still being alive, and we go a completely different direction with even more open-ended plots to toss into the pile.

The Hall of Heroes theory could make for a very visually interesting and lore-interesting final encounter with Kralk, but I fear that even if they go that route it may not be everything people are hoping for. We may visit it, and it may look neat, but we could wind up having the battle and resolution there but nothing more than some ambient dialogue or extra chats with the spirits there which I'm not sure is entirely what people are hoping for when they hope for this situation.

I also just don't see how Aurene becoming this mist entity will help us in our current situation, unless for some reason she attains all of her magic and abilities with her in the mists. And if that were the case, why wouldn't Mordremoth and Zhaitan keep their elder dragon powers when they die if they go to the mists? It just wouldn't be consistent to have her all of a sudden be some spirit dragon like Glint but be able to fill this elder dragon role that Glint couldn't, while presumably the elder dragons we have killed still released their magic into Tyria and gave up their spot on the proverbial pyramid. Unless they do retain their abilities but are or were unable to have any influence on Tyria at that point because of the mists at the time were separated? The whole msits thing just seems like it would have far more inconsistencies and plot holes than simply having her resurrected by Joko's magic or somehow branded and cleansed despite the inconsistencies with that theory.

Finding Shiny or some other dragon immediately after spending years developing the plot with Aurene would be illogical if we're supposed to emphasize completely with the commander and their team. Because outside of the fact that reality could come undone, the commander isn't going to just be like... "well, this dragon died so let's rush off and find another one."

Lastly we have the issue of, if our solution takes the entirety of season 5, we have this constant threat looming over our heads of Kralk eating the universe. And what kind of writing would that be to diminish the impact of our current predicament episode after episode? Eh... Or, Kralk for some reason at his most injured goes back to sleep whether it be on Tyria or in the mists, we have no solution, and then what? Despite Kralk being asleep and being grief-stricken we set off to find plan B and then surprise Kralk while he's asleep? Talk about anti-climactic.

We also have the theory that Aurene mind-jacked Kralk, which could play into the forgotten cleansing ritual I suppose, but would honestly be a pretty poor direction in and of itself. Even if she did mind-jack him, she... what... controls him from the mists? She straight up planted her mind into Kralk and now she's just a corpse on Tyria and has no spirit in the mists? Kralk would still have his mind in there, unless she somehow switched minds with him completely and Kralk is Aurene's body that's now dead? So how would that be explained? Is there any precedent in this game of people mind-swapping that I'm just not recalling right now? And even if there were, how would she.. elder dragon candidate or not, have the ability to mind swap with an elder dragon when the forgotten couldn't phase Kralk? It just wouldn't work.

This theory: Aurene that we saw wasn't actually Aurene thus why in the trials the line "you seem different," before she exits with us on our way to Thunderhead. But Aurene seems pretty Aurene-like, and I feel like that branding moment with Caithe and speaking through her pretty much establishes that it is Aurene. You're also left wondering how Glint was able to create that kind of a decoy to begin with... So this theory doesn't really work.

I think the resurrection Joko bit is partially because people want Aurene to come back and Joko's death to have more meaning, but also because it's just the most logical direction they can take that leaves the least amount of questions and doesn't require as much stretching of certain aspects of the story to make it work. It's also the quickest way to a resolution for those of us that wish to move past Kralk in general.

Whatever direction they choose to take, I hope they start developing episodes with story that don't end in - "the world is ending" "oh, no, the world is ending even faster than before" "OH NO THE WORLD IS ENDING RIGHT NOW" because it just gets really annoying with the way these releases are timed.

The only way I can see them making the next episode SEEM like a finale and top this episode in terms of drama while providing a link to season 5 and without killing Kralk is:

1. Aurene come back and it leads us into something involving her in season 5 with season 5 finishing off Kralk.
2. The gods come back or we meet them in the mists chasing Kralk or something and that leads into season 5...
3. Something taking advantage of Kralk's weakened state whether it being a god or another Elder Dragon.. or some random mist being that's pissed at him..

Otherwise we'll have a finale that will be what? An aftermath episode picking up the pieces and mourning? Would seem a rather boring conclusion of a season that's formula has consisted of drama stacked on drama stacked on drama.

@"cptaylor.2670" said:We also have the theory that Aurene mind-jacked Kralk, which could play into the forgotten cleansing ritual I suppose, but would honestly be a pretty poor direction in and of itself. Even if she did mind-jack him, she... what... controls him from the mists? She straight up planted her mind into Kralk and now she's just a corpse on Tyria and has no spirit in the mists? Kralk would still have his mind in there, unless she somehow switched minds with him completely and Kralk is Aurene's body that's now dead? So how would that be explained? Is there any precedent in this game of people mind-swapping that I'm just not recalling right now? And even if there were, how would she.. elder dragon candidate or not, have the ability to mind swap with an elder dragon when the forgotten couldn't phase Kralk? It just wouldn't work.

I mean, that's true and all, but the chief counter-evidence to this theory is that Kraalkatorik is a mean-looking kitten, and they aren't going to visually do that to their cute little mascot. Not enough people want a looks-like-Kraalkatorik-but-is-actually-Aurene T-shirt. Guild Wars is pretty good about following the Evil Is Ugly rule, mostly.

@perilisk.1874 said:

@"cptaylor.2670" said:We also have the theory that Aurene mind-jacked Kralk, which could play into the forgotten cleansing ritual I suppose, but would honestly be a pretty poor direction in and of itself. Even if she did mind-jack him, she... what... controls him from the mists? She straight up planted her mind into Kralk and now she's just a corpse on Tyria and has no spirit in the mists? Kralk would still have his mind in there, unless she somehow switched minds with him completely and Kralk is Aurene's body that's now dead? So how would that be explained? Is there any precedent in this game of people mind-swapping that I'm just not recalling right now? And even if there were, how would she.. elder dragon candidate or not, have the ability to mind swap with an elder dragon when the forgotten couldn't phase Kralk? It just wouldn't work.

Yeah, another reason why I don't buy into that theory.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:On top of what Aaron said, if there's any Elder Dragon undeserving of redemption, it's Kralkatorrik. And I don't mean such because he killed Glint and Aurene, but just his personality in general, imo, is directed as being irredeemable.

@"cptaylor.2670" said:We also have the theory that Aurene mind-jacked Kralk, which could play into the forgotten cleansing ritual I suppose, but would honestly be a pretty poor direction in and of itself. Even if she did mind-jack him, she... what... controls him from the mists? She straight up planted her mind into Kralk and now she's just a corpse on Tyria and has no spirit in the mists? Kralk would still have his mind in there.

What if Aurene imparted only a part of herself into Kralk without going into full mind swapping, and mellowed out Kralk's personality? Remember what Caithe said Aurene's being. Intense love and trust, overwhelming hope. Aurene's soul/mind/power is certainly weaker thank Kralk's that is true. But her memories and experiences, if they are as as Caithe describes, could it be weaponized in a mind melding situation? We don't have to presume that Aurene could or would have to completely override Kralkatoric's original self to succeed. Personality wise Kralk starts at 0, he is irredeemable. Add +1 love, trust and hope to his personality, and that makes him infinitely, even if marginally better. It creates a basis to try to calm the dragon down. Perhaps such a change could be the key to making a purifying ritual work.

I think I mentioned the possibility of Aurene entering Kralkatorrik's mind before. I certainly didn't expect that she flat-out stole his body. I imagined it more like us in the Mordremoth instance.

I've been expecting Aurene to come back, but not because I need her to. Personally, I've never been that attached to her. I certainly don't dislike her or anything, but I guess I'm just not invested enough. I expect her to come back because it's pretty much the only option when you escalate to the point of "either this plan works, or the entire universe is destroyed". At this point, something other than what (we at least thought) was our plan has to happen, but the stakes haven't changed as far as we know.

I hate to say it, but as cheap as some would see Aurene's return, I kinda feel the same way about her death to begin with. It's such an easy shock value moment. I'm not saying that you can't do that well, or even that this won't turn out really interesting in the end, but major character deaths are so popular right now, it doesn't have the meaning that it might have a decade ago. There's been such a pushback against traditional storytelling in modern fiction that sometimes having things turn just as planned would be a bigger twist.

I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining though. I liked this episode well enough, I just wish we had more to go on since the gaps between episodes are so long.

@Konig Des Todes.2086 said:Kralkatorrik didn't kill Vlast.

Right, that was Balthazar. My bad.

The truth is that we spent too much time getting Aurene prepared for the fight to just ditch that storyline. It would be an unprecedented red herring if so, and I don't see Anet doing that just for kicks.

My personal theory is that our beloved Joko is not dead. He got devoured by Aurene and her power kept him in check. Now that Aurene is gone he can take over her body and we will have our glorious Joko back. The almighty Joko reborn as a dragon.May Joko lead us to victory against the other dragons, just like he defeated Balthazar.

@Alex.9106 said:My personal theory is that our beloved Joko is not dead. He got devoured by Aurene and her power kept him in check. Now that Aurene is gone he can take over her body and we will have our glorious Joko back. The almighty Joko reborn as a dragon.May Joko lead us to victory against the other dragons, just like he defeated Balthazar.

Anet have been posting things about Grenth, Dwayna and Dhuum within the last couple of days on Twitter. I wonder if this like how T.V. Shows do previous episode recaps to remind you of possible plot points that you may have forgotten.

Very interesting.

@Alex.9106 said:My personal theory is that our beloved Joko is not dead. He got devoured by Aurene and her power kept him in check. Now that Aurene is gone he can take over her body and we will have our glorious Joko back. The almighty Joko reborn as a dragon.May Joko lead us to victory against the other dragons, just like he defeated Balthazar.

Not even a lich can survive their soul becoming unbound and their body being eaten and chewed bit by bit.

If Joko's death was like Blish's, where he got swallowed up whole or off-screen, then that idea may seem reasonable. But ground meat is not really capable of that.

If Aurene returns it will completley invalidate the cruel loss of her death and writing death has to have meaning, its why eir and snaff showing up, as interesting as it was, felt almost like a bad choice.

Death is Death, writing it final is what makes it good, writing it as immaterial makes it bad. The Commander came back from dying for a reason, we are the main protagonist, it worked for us.

It will not work for Aurene.

It'd ruin the entire cruelty of her defeat and while Glint did promise some glorious destiny where Dragons+Mortals can live in peace, I do not think it is via Aurene, that Destiny is meant to unfold, but via us.

I have a feeling we will get some kind of Dragonborn style fate where we are half-dragon half-mortal after Kralk.

@"CaptainVanguard.4925" said:If Aurene returns it will completley invalidate the cruel loss of her death and writing death has to have meaning, its why eir and snaff showing up, as interesting as it was, felt almost like a bad choice.

Death is Death, writing it final is what makes it good, writing it as immaterial makes it bad. The Commander came back from dying for a reason, we are the main protagonist, it worked for us.

It will not work for Aurene.

It'd ruin the entire cruelty of her defeat and while Glint did promise some glorious destiny where Dragons+Mortals can live in peace, I do not think it is via Aurene, that Destiny is meant to unfold, but via us.

I have a feeling we will get some kind of Dragonborn style fate where we are half-dragon half-mortal after Kralk.

How would having a half-dragon half-mortal commander be better?

And this entire expansion death has been somewhat irrelevant. The commander comes back from the dead, steals an army of undead from a lich that up until Aurene could not die, numerous alliances and victories given to us by ghosts that we interact with. The scent of death on us from being previously dead making us immune to dying via the scarab plague. Glint, Eir, Snaff, and the numerous other characters that are all.. you guessed it... dead. Acting like this one death is going to make any difference seems pretty pointless. Especially given the recurring theme so far.

And the cruel loss of her death was already shown to us countless times by she herself through the visions. So, sure, this fight may have been partially about giving ourselves every strategic advantage imaginable to prevent said death from happening, but given that it's revealed Aurene's true big fear was being branded as per Glint's trial, it would seem that Aurene was less afraid of dying and more afraid of being a mindless slave and turning against us. Which would make the cruel loss of her death more impactful to the commander and Dragon's Watch, who would potentially be unaware of her capability of her resurrection. People keep insisting that her death would be cheapened, but ignore the fact that we had several episodes in Season 3 building up to Jormag and Primordus, only to have Lazarus reveal himself as Balthazar and steal a machine that facilitates both threats simultaneously at once while immediately shifting focus to Balthazar. You act as though this one instance would be the greatest literary offense of all time, while ignoring they've already used similar tactics to resolve prior plots. And this plot has had a LOT more invested in it than just a few episodes in one living story season. You're also not truly empathizing with the commander or Dragon's Watch as you're meant to, as the writing is intending to do, but solely as player #33239023 that just consumes an episode and applies a blanket statement critique to something that deserves more. If you see a girl being chased by a serial killer in a movie and trip a thousand times, you know she's going to die and it makes sense, but you aren't supposed to evaluate frame per frame and say, "oh this is cheap", you're intended to empathize with the girl running and feel the fear that she feels in that moment. Terrible analogy with an extremely cliché example, but the point is, if you don't have the ability to empathize with the commander, it's going to feel cheap either way because you're just not connected to the story. If you were, and you felt what the commander feels, you wouldn't see Aurene come back and think... "wow.. this is cheap.." you would be jumping for joy that she's back. And to me, that seems like the real intention of the writing and of the entire development of the character. If you don't feel that way, I think her character and the story in general just doesn't really resonate with you and you're probably going to be disappointed no matter what the outcome. Assigning a value to an event in a story that isn't finished based solely on its divisiveness seems like a rather crude over-simplification of something you weren't intended to appraise to begin with.

But, rant over. With the amount of tweets about gods from Arenanet lately, if it is a hint, I wonder what implications it could have for the story.

Theory 1: Aurene resurrection via underworld or some gods intervention.

Theory 2: Aurene is in fact branded this next episode, and its eluding to a return to Arah and a cleansing of Aurene mirroring Glint.

Theory 3: Aurene stays out of the picture but the gods get involved somehow and help us deal with Kralk.

Theory 4: It's a raid/fractal teaser of somekind.

Theory 5: It's literally anything else, or just nothing in general. Which seems unlikely given they've stated that the gods story wasn't finished yet.

Given the underworld seems like it would have little to do with a dragon, despite the slight foreshadowing last episode about Kralk eating the domain of the lost.. and the fact that Aurene would likely not wind up in the domain of the lost given that we're under the impression that things in the domain of the lost wind up there due to sudden? traumatic deaths which doesn't seem to fit Aurene's… I doubt Theory 1 really applies. Unless they tie the gods in somehow via Aurene and Glint's talk about ascension or something.

Theory 2 seems more plausible as it feels like all of Path of Fire has been a bit of a nostalgia train and mirroring Glint's cleansing would certainly keep us on the tracks. Also somewhat reinforced by Glints trials in that Aurene's greatest fear is being branded, and the whole intention of our bond together and the trials is that we need each other to succeed, which could mean that Aurene NEEDS us to free her from her greatest fear of being branded and potentially that fighting that version of herself may help us free her during her cleansing. The only immediate counter to this that I can think of would be the fact that we ended the episode with her being merely a corpse and Kralk flew away and left her. Though, with us having just killed the death-branded shatterer, having him turn Aurene into his new death-branded champion doesn't seem extremely out of character. (Unless it's explained somehow that, with the sudden emergence of Kralk suddenly having enough character development to announce that he apparently had a vision of himself dying and is hellbent on getting rid of Aurene as his main threat, that he would be afraid to resurrect her in fear of knowing that we have the potential to cleanse her like they did Glint.)

Theory 3 - Seems unlikely to me as 1. the gods always seemed a bit afraid of the elder dragons to me, whether it be their necessity to the balance of Tyria or the sheer power they possess. If they're afraid of killing Kralk for the imbalance, it would seem they would only step in if they had found their new garden and have somewhere for us to go or some way to fix the problem that they didn't have before or are simply yolo'ing it and killing him because they know there won't be anywhere else for them to find if Kralk stays alive. Reasonable. If they're afraid of the power the elder dragons possess, weakened or not, he has essentially the power of two dead elder dragons, and whatever he gained from Balthazar. So, if they were already afraid of elder dragons power to start off with, why would they go up against a superpowered elder dragon, that has a chance of gaining even more power and essentially destroying one or all of them and gaining even more power with each killing blow/nom nom chomp. All that being said, it still feels like to create consistency we would have to have some other replacement for an elder dragon which at the moment may only be the Pale Tree potentially. And that would be a heck of a lot to cover in one episode between the gods, the explanation of the pale tree being able to ascend to elder dragon status, and the final fight with Kralk.

Theory 4 - seems unlikely as well but raids don't seem to follow any specific pattern these days, and given the time span between them I doubt we'll be seeing much of one going forward. I'm not sure how the Djinn place and Underworld tie in together, and Underworld would tie into the gods, but the Djinn wouldn't from what I can see. If we see any continuation, I could see either the Wizard's Tower or the Hidden City and a potential introduction of Shiny as our new Aurene 2.0 similar to how the white mantle were introduced in the first raid wing. But honestly, it just seems like they're keeping raid stories as separate from the main plot as possible in contrast to last season with the White Mantle and Saul/Mursaat. Though I suppose you could tie the Underworld in with our time in the domain of the lost, and the djinn to Vabbi, Joko?, and the region in general. All of which are complimentary more than introductory as they were with the White Mantle.

Last Theory that I didn't include: the gods somehow are involved with us subduing Kralk into hibernation. But subduing Kralk into hibernation would not only be extremely anti-climactic, but be extremely crushing for the commander and Dragon's Watch, as they just lost Aurene and her sacrifice and entire development in general would have only been to grant us more time, leaving us not only heartbroken for our many losses over the years for particular journey, but bringing us right back to square 1 with potential paranoia every time the sky's even a slight shade of purple or a mumble of some elder dragon activity. It just doesn't seem likely and seems like an excessively demoralizing outcome.

I do think your final theory is what's going to happen. The Gods aren't going to provide a solution, they're going to provide a stay of execution so we can get another solution in place. The main reason they avoided fighting the Elder Dragons was the collateral of doing so. So long as they fight and contain Kralkatorrik in the Mists but not kill him, the balance is still unthreatened and the collateral of their clash does not effect Tyria. They just need to perform some sort of holding action so Tyria can get its act together.

As ArenaNet said, Kralkatorrik is more than just a Tyria-level threat now, he's a threat to all of reality, and I think that will change the Gods calculations on the matter - Before their decision was only predicated on the fact that the Dragons were bound to Tyria, now Kralkatorrik is not, an ability likely gained from Balthazar, that may well be the gamechanger the Gods either require or, in fact, have been waiting for this whole time, to allow their involvement.

They've had some plan RE the Elder Dragons. They were involved with the Forgotten and Glint's solution, but Glint said that the plans of the Gods are beyond her knowing. So there is clearly something up there.

gods don't come back but we drop kralk into menzies living room and have the 2 distract each other for a few episodes

@ThatOddOne.4387 said:I do think your final theory is what's going to happen. The Gods aren't going to provide a solution, they're going to provide a stay of execution so we can get another solution in place. The main reason they avoided fighting the Elder Dragons was the collateral of doing so. So long as they fight and contain Kralkatorrik in the Mists but not kill him, the balance is still unthreatened and the collateral of their clash does not effect Tyria. They just need to perform some sort of holding action so Tyria can get its act together.

As ArenaNet said, Kralkatorrik is more than just a Tyria-level threat now, he's a threat to all of reality, and I think that will change the Gods calculations on the matter - Before their decision was only predicated on the fact that the Dragons were bound to Tyria, now Kralkatorrik is not, an ability likely gained from Balthazar, that may well be the gamechanger the Gods either require or, in fact, have been waiting for this whole time, to allow their involvement.

They've had some plan RE the Elder Dragons. They were involved with the Forgotten and Glint's solution, but Glint said that the plans of the Gods are beyond her knowing. So there is clearly something up there.

My biggest issue with them merely acting as jailors, is that it would seem risky to them to put themselves in that position. It's also questionable as to whether, even if working together, they are powerful enough to do so. Balthazar needed a special machine and Aurene just to damage Kralk. If they have no such devices at their disposal, I'm not sure how likely it is that they would be able to contain him.

It is also odd however, that the ghosts in the mists and Glint's army mentioned badly wounding him before we even started fighting him, because they didn't have access to dragonsblood weapons like we did in Tyria. So how did they manage to wound him with what they had, when Balthazar, a being known to travel and potentially originating from the mists, couldn't have any effect on him without the help of the forged siege and Aurene's ability to impact him through resonance. Is he more susceptible to other kinds of attacks while in the mists? Was it really Glint and Vlast that were able to injure and weaken him in the Mists even though, arguably, they are merely spirit beings at this point? Things just don't add up. And I think they will continue to not add up unless they find a way to make the original plan work with Aurene.

And unless the gods are involved with US and killing Kralk, I just don't see them getting involved just to attempt to imprison him somehow. But I suppose it's possible, given that we don't actually know how powerful the gods are in comparison to Elder Dragons or the full extent of their capabilities. Perhaps just as they are able to grant a blessing to Kormir to absorb Abaddon, they equally have the ability to drain a beings magic or extract certain properties, i.e. Kralk's ability to traverse the mists and ultimately leaving him stranded somewhere. I feel like that would be one hell of a cop out though. shrug

Though I suppose it's also possible that they use this as an opportunity to somehow make it so that Zafirah inherits Balthazar's position as god of War, because they somehow have managed to not replace him yet, and this leads to her sort of absorbing the part of Balthazar that Kralk has within him. Or that perhaps in killing Kralk, the pale tree somehow ascends to replace Mordremoth and they have leeway to kill Kralk without the world exploding. But even then, just doesn't seem likely.

Or at this point it could be explained that the gods are attuned enough to the all that they have the ability to simply allow a non-typical replacement to absorb the magic of Kralk through ascension or something.

It's really anyone's guess at this point.

The Gods are more than powerful enough to fight an Elder Dragon. Balthazar was exceedingly weak compared to how he was because the other Gods specifically drained him. Even after he absorbed all he could from the Bloodstone, Jormag and Primordus he was nowhere near the level Gods are. The reason they avoided fighting the Elder Dragons is not because they couldn't win, but because the damage inflicted whether they won or lost through collateral would be too great, and they knew killing the Elder Dragons outright without replacing them was bad and that solution wasn't ready yet.

And there should already be a replacement for Balthazar if ArenaNet are keeping to their own lore, as people have said several times on these forums.

From a story standpoint the reason I say the Gods contain Kralkatorrik or keep him busy is so that the characters we're more familiar with still have agency, I'm not saying the Gods should have all the answers to the current predicament, but they should give an opportunity for all the characters involved to get those answers. (And if they're busy fighting a super-powered Elder Dragon, trying to stop him eating more of the Mists, they probably won't be able to just casually chat about how to fix the problem but hey)

Because the simple fact of the matter is that, from a story and in universe perspective both, if Kralkatorrik is left to just sit in the Mists he'll be even more powerful and pretty much unstoppable. So either he's suddenly beaten in the next episode, or he is contained/put to sleep/distracted in the finale going into the next Season. The Gods (Or another Elder Dragon) are really the only beings left we've seen continual references to with the ability to intervene against Kralkatorrik at this stage.